DENVER — The Democratic Party chose Denver over New York on Thursday as the site for its 2008 presidential nominating convention, capping months of debate about which city had better logistics, deeper pockets and a more compelling backdrop to frame the party’s message.

“If we’re going to have a national party, we’re going to have to have Westerners vote for us on a consistent basis,” said the Democratic Party’s chairman, Howard Dean, in a telephone news conference. “At the end of the day,” Dean added, “that’s what tipped it to Denver.”

Denver economic development officials said the convention, to be held Aug. 25-28, 2008, would be the biggest hotel-based gathering in the city’s history, with 35,000 people spending hundreds of millions of dollars on food, drink and places to sleep. The convention will mark exactly 100 years since the last national political convention here, in 1908, when the Democrats came and nominated William Jennings Bryan, who lost the election to William Howard Taft.

Western Democrats, led by Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the new majority leader, maintained through the selection process that the shifting demographics of the West were really Denver’s strongest suit in bidding for the convention.

But if Democrats are stronger in the West, they are probably more iconoclastic and diverse than ever, political experts say, which could make the party’s Western venture less predictable, if not divisive. Many Western Democrats, like Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, are against gun control; others, like Gov. Bill Ritter in Colorado, are personally opposed to abortion.

Five of the eight states in the interior west now have Democratic governors, including Ritter, who took office in Colorado this week. Democrats picked up about 25 new state legislature seats in November’s elections as well, gaining ground in Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado and Idaho, while suffering a net loss of seats to the Republicans only in Montana. The U.S. Senate swung to Democratic control partly on the shoulders of Tester, who defeated Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana.

“The last few election cycles helped get the attention of the DNC about what was happening,” said the state’s Democratic Party chairwoman, Pat Waak, at a downtown news conference. “It is a new Democrat that is out there, epitomized by what is happening in the West.”